Robotics Research Engineer

The Role

We are hiring a Robotics Research Engineer to design, implement, and deploy intelligent robotic systems for manufacturing.

This is not a purely academic role - and not a generic software role. You will work across:

• ROS2-based system architecture
• Manipulation and navigation
• Perception and VLA-based control
• Traditional controls fused with learned methods
• On-site deployment in production manufacturing workcells

You should be equally comfortable reading robotics papers, tuning controllers, debugging sensor calibration, and pushing production code to robots running on a factory floor.

Key Responsibilities

Robotics Systems & Architecture

• Design and implement distributed robotic systems in ROS2
• Build modular autonomy stacks for manipulation and mobile platforms
• Own system-level performance, latency, and reliability

Robotics Foundation Models (VLA)

• Develop and integrate Vision-Language-Action models for robotic control
• Design data collection pipelines and fine-tune foundation models for assembly tasks
• Benchmark and evaluate real-world performance

Controls + Learning

• Fuse traditional control with learned policies
• Implement hybrid perception-planning-control architectures
• Improve robustness, repeatability, and safety in physical systems

Manipulation, Navigation & Deployment

• Develop algorithms for dexterous manipulation and industrial navigation
• Ship systems from prototype to production
• Debug real-world edge cases (lighting, calibration drift, wear, latency) and maintain deployed robotic cells

What We're Looking for

• Founder mentality: We love people who build like it’s their own company.
• You move fast, take ownership, and find a way through when the path isn’t obvious.
• You have the drive to make big things happen and the judgment to take smart risks along the way.
• If you prefer a clearly defined lane, a predictable pace, and all the answers before you start, there’s nothing wrong with that-but Foundry might not be the right fit.

Deployment Mentality

• Experience shipping systems into real environments (not just lab demos)
• Comfort debugging hardware-software integration issues
• Ability to own systems end-to-end

Ownership

• Thrives in high-velocity, ambiguous environments
• Takes full technical ownership of complex systems
• Willing to get into the weeds of mechanical, electrical, and software challenges

Nice to Have

• PhD in Robotics or related field
• Experience working on dual-use or DoD-related systems
• Ability to obtain a government security clearance
• Experience with safety-critical robotic systems

Growth Opportunities

• Define the technical direction of robotics foundation model deployment in manufacturing
• Build and lead the autonomy team
• Shape the next generation of AI-driven assembly systems
• Become a core technical interface with defense and industrial partners